


Inertia

by pentipus



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Anarchy, Death, Fairly graphic depictions of death, Frottage, Horrible Things, M/M, Mentions of Holocaust, Moral Ambiguity, Pain, Revolution, Sadness, Sex, Snowpiercer AU - Freeform, Violence, just nasty stuff basically, lots of different ways to say 'dirt', mentions of infant fatalities, possible cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:51:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3680361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentipus/pseuds/pentipus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course they all wanted something different, something other than the bleak Ark around them, something other than the aching cold and the churning hunger. People whispered of anarchy in the dark, but the hunger and the cold kept them quiet; a complacent mass waiting to die despite being so desperate to live.</p>
<p>It was the slowest holocaust in history, a most organised massacre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the warnings you guys. Although if you've seen the movie, it's pretty standard.
> 
> P.S. I LOVE FEEDBACK. Please inform me of what I have messed up.
> 
> P.P.S. I am on [Tumblr](http://agent-carnter.tumblr.com/) uwu

It was like the hold of a ship, although Steve would never have known it. Brown racks of bunks swaying backwards and forwards, the reek and the echoing noise. A constant chatter rang through the cars night and day, low crying and muffled grunts. The putrid reek of waste and illness wafted between the bunks, litter and dirt was a fine silt on the floor. And amongst the detritus dwelt the people.

Steve sat on the edge of his bunk and stared down the length of the car, silently tracking its motion. He rolled the blackened knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, his forearms against his thighs, feet flat on the dirty floor.

“Steve,” said a voice above him. “Two minutes, yeah?”

Steve nodded and glanced up, but whoever had spoken was already gone. He signed and hefted himself to his feet, taking a few careful steps around a game of tic-tac-toe that some children had set up on the floor to his right, and walked away towards the rear of the car.

Of course they all wanted something different, something other than the bleak Ark around them, something other than the aching cold and the churning hunger. People whispered of anarchy in the dark, but the hunger and the cold kept them quiet; a complacent mass waiting to die despite being so desperate to live.

It was the slowest holocaust in history, a most organised massacre. Kids were born all the time, but died soon after. Of cold, of disease, of hunger. Bodies blue and grey and mottled in their bunks. They were taken away to be burnt, or thrown from the train by their stiff little limbs.

Four years ago Steve started hoarding his food, hunks of jellied protein that never festered. When the kids were going hungry he would pass out the dusty blocks to quivering hands and desperate thank yous. But in the end the men at the front figured out what he was doing and isolated him at meal times, not allowing him to leave until he had eaten or discarded the remainder of his ration. Of course they wanted the kids to die; it was the easiest way to control population, the easiest bodies to dispose of.

Steve neared the end of the car and pushed aside a greying sheet, revealing a huddled group of individuals sitting on upturned crates. They were wrapped in so many layers of dirty synthetic wool that they looked like a collection of grey rocks, stoic in the dark.

“Who’s this?” Steve said, pointing at the new face among them despite knowing who he was. Everyone knew Sergeant James Barnes, the Broken Soldier; the hero that had cut off his arm during the starvation riots and fed it to the mob to save a baby.

“Bucky,” said the man, standing up and holding out his hand. “Steve, right?”

Steve nodded, shaking the man’s hand. “I'd heard you were in the prison section.”

Bucky shrugged, “I was. Gilliam got me out.”

“You know Gilliam?”

“He knows me, or knows of me.” Bucky’s face was strained, exhausted. Steve couldn’t quite read it. “He sent for me, told me to come here to meet with you once I was out.”

“Steve,” another member of the little group, Andrew, held out his hand to get Steve’s attention, his red hair grubby and roughly cut. “Bucky’s got us a new message from the front.”

“Well,” said Bucky quickly. “It’s not so much a message, just information.”

Steve stared around at the group and back at Bucky. “Well?”

“Steve, honey, come and sit down first,” the only woman in the group, Tanya, patted the crate beside her. Steve sat down with a huff.

“Well?” he said again.

“They’re planning on cutting rations to the tail section,” Bucky said slowly. “I heard the guards talking about freeing up some of the slots in the prison section because there would be trouble after the rations get cut.” Steve grimaced and let out a long puff of air. Bucky shrugged as he continued, “They didn’t say why, but it’s gonna be soon.”

“Maybe they’re getting overcrowded in the front section? Maybe they need more food?” Andrew said, looking around at the group.

Steve slowly shook his head. “They wouldn’t allow that to happen, Gilliam said they’re too organised for that.”

 “So what then?” Andrew said, looking at Steve.

Steve closed his eyes, concentrated on the sway of the Ark. This had been a long time coming, they all knew it. They had been patiently waiting for some final injustice that would galvanise the people into a willing horde. A tail section army of starving refugees.

“Do you think this could be it?” Andrew prompted after a moment, his voice suddenly lowered to a whisper.

“I need to speak to Gilliam,” Steve said finally, opening his eyes. “You,” he said in a low tone, pointing at Bucky. “You can come with me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is nice uwu

Steve sat with his head down as Bucky and Gilliam spoke together in gruff mumbles, looking at the dirt under his fingernails. Eventually Gilliam said softly, “Steven.”

Steve looked up, his eyes low and tired. “This is the start we spoke about,” Gilliam said, inclining his head towards Bucky. “This is it.”

Steve nodded. He paused and then nodded again, looking back down at his hands.

 

“We could do this, Steve. We could really do this,” Bucky said a few days later, hand flat in the air in front of him. “You know, they like you, the people like you. They’ll follow you.”

“I don’t want to be followed,” Steve said.

“But we need a leader, we need someone to stand for something.”

“Well, what about you?” Steve asked, his eyes flicking subconsciously to the empty sleeve at Bucky’s side.

Bucky shrugged. “It’s not the same, I don’t have the authority. And I’ve been away so long.” Steve could see that Bucky was almost smiling, something you didn’t see often in the gloom. “The people remember your fast, Steve.”

Steve looked down at his hands. “That was a hell of a long time ago.”

“People remember.”

They were silent for a while after that, until Steve said, “So what then? We go forward?”

Bucky shrugged. “Go forward, take the front. Vive la revolution.”

Steve smiled at that. “Right.”

“Someone’s gotta do something,” Bucky said. “We can’t live like this forever.”

Steve nodded, then looked at Bucky from under his furrowed brow. “I’m not a good person, Buck. I’m not this great hero.”

 

 

Steve had taken to watching Bucky, this broken thing from the prison section who seemed more a man than any he had met. They sat together and made plans to take the front, which Steve relayed back to Gilliam, to Tanya and Andrew, gauging their opinions, testing. Bucky would sway into impassioned speeches, hand out in front of him, shaping the words for their little group to absorb.

Steve watched the layers of cloth against Bucky’s neck, vests and shirts and jumpers, layer upon layer upon layer. Steve watched his hands, he watched his mouth.

One evening they sat together after a meeting, watching Tanya tuck her little boy’s head under her chin as she hefted him back to her bunk. Steve watched Bucky as he rolled a thin cigarette, the barest amount of tobacco dusted inside the grubby paper. He watched as Bucky lifted the roll to his mouth, as his tongue gently wetted the edge of the paper. Bucky finished the roll and reflexively tapped the end of the cigarette on the crate beside him, turning to look at Steve.

Bucky stared, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You want some of this?” he said, indicating the roll.

Steve‘s voice sounded strained, desperate. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

Bucky leant forward, cigarette in hand, but instead of pressing it to Steve’s lips Bucky cupped his hand against the side of Steve’s neck, his fingers pulling him forward. Steve opened his mouth to Bucky’s, breathing the hot air as their lips touched, feeling the press of his tongue.

Then Bucky pulled away, tapping the cigarette again and searching his pockets for a light. “Risky business,” he said, putting the roll to his lips and striking a match.

Steve nodded dumbly, struggling for something to say.

 

After that the messages started to come through from the front. Where they were coming from they were never sure, although Gilliam said it was a contact that he had made before the Revolt of the Seven, when the barriers between sections weren’t as strict. He said that as long as the messages were coming through his contact was still alive and still in position.

They planned to storm the guards during evening rations, fight their way to the prison section and release a contact that Bucky had made there, some electronics expert that could get them through the doors between sections. Steve tried to imagine how Bucky had managed to do anything from inside his little prison box, but then he’d never been there, so how could he ever know.

Steve’s skin buzzed when he looked at Bucky, his jaw clenching when Bucky looked back.

They pressed against each other one night, Steve rolling his hips against Bucky’s until he was gasping, until Bucky pressed his hand flat on Steve’s chest and pushed him away. “Steve, I can’t come in this pants," he shuddered when Steve stilled, nodding. "I can’t come in these pants.”

“Right,” Steve said, letting his forehead drop onto the pillow beside Bucky’s head. “’Course, yeah.”

Abortion after abortion. Steve tried not to think of little cadavers, of guns filled with bullets. He shook his head. “I’m gonna-” Steve waved his hand, indicating towards his bunk across the aisle.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, smiling. “You go.”

Steve pulled himself up, rearranged his trousers and dropped down to the floor. He still couldn’t read Bucky, not fully. There was something sad about him that seemed different to the usual wretched misery that the people carried with them. Like he was watching a friend read a book that he knew ended badly, something premonitory. A bleak omen held somewhere behind his small smiles.

“Steve,” Bucky whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Good night.”

Steve looked down the length of the car and watched it sway. “Good night,” he said finally.


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Bucky would meet with Gilliam alone, packed into the semi-private space of Gilliam’s quarters. After his meetings Bucky would walk the length of the car until he found Steve, pulling him away to the rear car, where great oiled pistons thunked loudly around them, covering their low voices. Bucky would dutifully relay whatever it was that he and Gilliam had discussed, even if it was something innocuous; Gilliam telling Bucky about different foods he had once eaten, about the things that people used to do for fun.

One day Steve was sat in his bunk watching a group of kids play a game of ‘down ball’, an energetic form of soccer played down the length of the car, a homemade ball of knotted rags kicked back and forth between the bunks. Steve watched as Bucky appeared at the end of the row of bunks and began to edge his way towards him, trying to avoid the brown ball as the kids called to one another.

Bucky raised his eyebrows when he saw Steve watching him, tilting his head back towards the end of the car in a question.

Steve nodded.

“Steve!” one of the children shouted at he stood, thinking he was going to join in.

“Watch out now, watch out now,” Steve said with a smile, stepping around them to join Bucky. “How’s it going?” he said as he reached Bucky’s side.

Bucky nodded. “You wanna come and debrief?”

“That military training’s still in there, huh?” Steve said, rolling his eyes.

Bucky smiled.

 

Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen an entire human body, maybe he never had, not alive anyway. So when he saw Bucky hurriedly peeling away layer after layer of tough woollen clothes he felt his breath catch. His body vibrated with the urgency of his wanting, down to the marrow of his bones. He watched with an open mouth as Bucky reached for the hem of his dirty vest, hooking the fingers of his remaining hand underneath and pulling it up over his stomach and over his head. Steve was moving forward before he even registered what he was doing, swaying with the great pssht-thunk pssht-thunk of the pistons behind him, his hands on Bucky’s hot skin.

“Fuck,” he said, low and almost too quiet under the noise of the Ark whirring around them. “Fuck,” he said again. He pushed his hands against Bucky’s stomach, splaying his fingers over his ribs as Bucky huffed out a breath. He dug his fingers into the warm meat of Bucky’s sides; letting them dip into the ridges of thin muscles at his hips. He pressed his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck, his hands on the small of his back, pressing his unmoving lips of Bucky’s collarbone, his throat, his sternum.

“Steve,” Bucky said, reaching forward. “You gotta do it too.”

Steve hadn’t even thought about it, he didn’t want to take his hands off of that soft expanse of Bucky’s flesh; he was possibly the warmest he had ever been. But still he stripped away his jumpers and shirts and vests, unbuttoning his pants with one hand as he reached for Bucky’s.

“We gotta, we gotta-” Steve felt delirious, too hot and too dizzy, surrounded by a turmoil of noise and heat. The gasses going to his head. When they finally pressed their bodies together Steve sighed, a great pained exhale of relief as his dirty skin pressed hotly against Bucky’s. “Jesus,” he muttered. He could feel Bucky’s hard cock against his own, through the thick layers of their unfastened pants. Bucky’s hips pushed upwards, grinding against Steve until a hard small noise escaped his open mouth.

Bucky pressed his face against Steve’s neck, biting down where his pulse thrummed to the beat of the rattling Ark around them, thump thump thump thump thump. He was saying something, breath hot and wet against Steve’s skin.

“What? Buck, what?”

Bucky pulled away, letting his head tip back against the riveted metal of the wall behind him, the long line of his throat flushed in the gas light. “Let’s fuck,” he said, gripping one of Steve’s wrists and pulling his hand up, sucking two of Steve’s fingers into his mouth, jaw working in the light.

All Steve could do was nod, his head swimming. It occurred to him that he had only had sex a few times in his entire life; he wondered if Bucky _ever_ had. Unless you were fucking for procreation there was little space or time to do it, and certainly not the energy. He thought of this as Bucky twisted under his hands, pushing his pants down around his ankles; his hand working one side and then the other.

Steve wrapped one hand around the top of Bucky’s bicep, the truncated limb tense under his palm as he pressed the wet fingers of his other hand between the cheeks of Bucky’s ass.

They fucked quick and fierce after that, and Steve found that he had violence bubbling dangerously close to the surface; cruelty held somewhere between his filthy skin and the yellow layers of fat above his starving muscles. He hurt Bucky, and when he had finished Bucky turned around and hurt him back, then kissed the blood from his lips while he sobbed dryly, “I’m sorry, Steve, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Buck-” Steve wanted to apologise too, he wanted to say something kind but found that he had no kind words, so instead he just shook his head, twisted his fingers into Bucky’s hair and pressed his lips to his forehead.

 

Bucky went back to Gilliam afterwards, slipping back into that gentle misery without a word. Steve watched him go before making his way back to his bunk, clapping Andrew on the shoulder when he passed him.

“Meeting tomorrow?” Andrew said.

Steve nodded. “Bucky’s with Gilliam now so we should have an update soon,” he said, thinking of the messages that had been slowly filtering through from the front. He thought about the impending ration cuts and imagined the gaunt faces of the people in the tail section, their skin pulled tight across the ridges of their ribs, the dangerous jut of their hip bones. He thought about limp bodies stacked to the ceiling, he thought about severed limbs and spilt blood, he thought of Bucky’s hot skin and the press of his cock.

“Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Tomorrow. For sure.”


End file.
